Sharon Osbourne admits she ended up undergoing ketamine therapy after fiery on-air debate
Sharon Osbourne has slammed the steady rise of cancel culture after a heated on-air debate about race resulted in her suspension and subsequent dismissal from US show The Talk.
The outspoken TV personality had served as a panelist on the CBS show, but found herself blacklisted in the United States after defending Piers Morgan’s right to condemn Meghan Markle during a fiery discussion with co-host Sheryl Underwood.
Sharon, 69, claims she was subjected to death threats in the wake of her suspension, and admits the bitter experience resulted in her undergoing an unconventional form of therapy.
Speaking out: Sharon Osbourne has slammed the steady rise of cancel culture after a heated on-air debate about race resulted in her suspension and subsequent dismissal from The Talk
Recalling her dismissal from CBS. she told The Times: ‘They said to me, “You are on permanent suspension. We don’t think that you’re repentant enough. And we will decide whether you ever come back.”
‘And I said, “Well, who’s going to make that decision?” And they said, “We can’t tell you.”‘
Sharon became a household name on both sides of the Atlantic thanks to pioneering MTV reality show The Osbournes, a fly-on-the-wall look at life inside the sprawling Beverly Hills mansion she shared with husband Ozzy, their three children and a menagerie of pets
An eleven season run on The Talk soon followed, but she admits every door was slammed in her face after she publicly endorsed Morgan’s right to free speech in the wake of Meghan and Prince Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Controversy: Sharon found herself blacklisted after defending Piers Morgan’s right to condemn Meghan Markle during a fiery discussion with co-host Sheryl Underwood
Of the public reaction, she said: ‘They were saying they were going to come in the night, cut my throat, cut Ozzy’s throat, cut my dogs’ throats.
‘I said, “I ain’t going out, I ain’t doing anything.” I just couldn’t stop crying because all I was thinking about was all the things that I’ve gone through in my life, and now they’re calling me a racist, this is insanity.’
The order resulted in Sharon undergoing months of ketamine therapy – with the class B drug administered to induce dissociative anesthesia, sedation, and amnesia.
‘If you’re a person that stuffs things [down, ie, suppresses things]”I’m fine, I’m fine,” this drug relaxes you,’ she said of the experience.
‘You’re not out completely. You can hear, you can talk, but you’re so relaxed, and you can’t bulls**t on it. It’s a truth drug.’
The British television personality previously accused CBS and show producers of hanging her out to dry live on air during a tense conversation with co-host Sheryl Underwood.
‘It was a freedom of speech matter. It was pure freedom of speech,’ Sharon told DailyMailTV in September. ‘A journalist friend of mine who wrote something that people didn’t like and then a few crazies out there, some thugs go – “you must be racist, that’s why you’re saying it” – about my friend Piers. It’s like, come on.’
Sharon claimed that the seemingly impromptu moment was actually carefully orchestrated by a show executive who wanted to create controversy and without her knowing by telling her co-hosts to ask her if people now thought she was a racist.
Old times: Sharon became a household name thanks to The Osbournes, a fly-on-the-wall look at life inside the Beverly Hills mansion she shared with husband Ozzy, their children and a menagerie of pets
‘They all knew the question and they all knew what was going down. I felt totally betrayed,’ Sharon said. Adding that, what made matters worse, was when Sheryl started crying Sharon told her to stop.
The optics of a white host telling her black colleague not to cry over issues of racism, on live television, didn’t sit well with the public, the audience or the network. she asserts, however, that perception was not reality.
‘We had a disagreement and I told her she shouldn’t be crying, it should be me that should be crying and that didn’t go down well,’ she said. ‘Then in the commercial break, she would not talk to me. I was begging her to talk to me and she wouldn’t, and basically I said, go f**k yourself.
‘To leave me for 20 minutes on live TV… on live TV… unprepared, not produced, not knowing what’s going on,’ she recalled with a shake of her head. ‘Wait, where’s their apology to me? They could have cut at any time and gone to a commercial break, and why didn’t they cut?
She added: ‘I would say that to any one of my friends. When you say it to a friend, it’s different than saying it to somebody, a stranger. If you can’t get real with somebody who you’ve worked alongside for 10 years, then then you don’t have a friendship, and that’s the way I look at it.’
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